Thursday, March 7, 2013

A parent's task is straightforward: you're issued with one small, squalling animal (or multiple thereof) and the sole item on the task list is to turn it into a civilised human being. The way you carry out the task is up to you, but one thing you can take as guaranteed is that there will be a certain amount of unpleasantness involved. That's because small, squalling animals generally lack interest in being turned into civilised human beings so your task will inevitably bring you into conflict with your child on many occasions. As the parent, it's your view of the child's best interest that must prevail, or you'll end up with a large squalling animal at the end of the process, rather than a civilised human being.

"So far, so what," you say. "Stop stating the obvious." Well, apparently it isn't obvious any more. If you had your kids within the last 20 years or so, you'll have encountered parents via childcare or primary school who seem to look on their task as something more like acting as a servant to the child and following its instructions. Consider for example Kathryn and Jeremy Mathis, the parents of a "transgender" 6-year-old. According to news reports, the then-male child Coy Mathis at the tender age of 18 months old declared himself a girl, and the parents, having consulted medical "authorities" on the subject of what a girl is, have treated her as a girl ever since.

I recall that my kids as toddlers made a great many declarations regarding ways the rest of the world must alter itself to suit them, but it never occurred to me to take those declarations as commands. And it failed to occur to me not because I'm a prick who hates anyone else getting a say in what happens (no, seriously), but because I'm aware that a 2-year-old isn't as well-suited as an adult to make decisions that will have profound consequences for his/her life.

Mr and Ms Mathis are not aware of that, or at least I assume they aren't, because it's hard to imagine them being aware of it and then allowing a 2-year-old to command them to change his gender for life. Because that's what they've done - regardless of what the long-term outcome for Coy Mathis would have been if his parents had had two brain cells to rub together and had just told him his dangly bits declared him not a girl so suck it up, she is now transgender, not merely in her own mind but officially in the form of an ID and passport, and publicly in the world's news media. It's like a particularly elaborate and exquisite form of child abuse.

Coy is in the news because her school decided she wasn't to use the girls' bathroom any more, on the basis of having inappropriate weeing tackle. Which is shitty behaviour by the school - we're talking 6-year-olds here, after all. But the Mathis' response to this setback betrays a truly remarkable level of self-deception: fearing that the school's action might prompt mockery and bullying, her mother said: "It was going to set her up for a lot of bad things." Oh, it isn't the school that's set your daughter up for a lot of bad things lady, not the school by a long way.

Not sure I agree with you there, Milt. We are far to keen to shove people in general in boxes. Are these parents/teachers any better/worse that those that force kids to participate in sport for instance?

Are these parents/teachers any better/worse that those that force kids to participate in sport for instance?

The teachers aren't - schools are full of shitty rules that annoy in one form or another. But what the parents have done falls way outside that category, it's hugely worse. They've not only put the kid in a box, they've put her in one that will contain her permanently and bring her a great deal of misery, and they've done it based on the demands of a 2-year-old. That is so fucked up it's hard to believe anyone would actually do it.

True Milt, but that's liberalism for you. The belief that individuals have total control of their own life means that even when the person is a 2 yr old child, we must respect their 'choice' of lifestyle/declaration of gender expression.

I don't blame the school at all - much easier to set clear rules from his first year, rather than try change when he gets older. The *real* girls in that changing shed deserve respect that Coy's parents aren't giving them.

Oh, and why are you referring to him as 'her' and 'she'? If he has male DNA, he's a male, no matter what his parents or a judge may say. Can't fudge the science.

Because, for all that I might regard what they've done as child abuse, the parents Mathis have effectively made their child Coy a girl as far as society's dealings with her are concerned.

In our dealings with other people, we don't make them drop their pants so we can decide what pronouns we're going to use for them, we rely on what gender they present as. Coy presents as gender female, courtesy of her deranged fuckwit parents, so female pronouns it is.

You and I might both know, thanks to Coy's parents having decided to parade her as a media spectacle (hey, why stop at just one gobsmackingly stupid decision?), what Coy's sex actually is; and further, that Coy is in for one hellish motherfucker of a bitch-slapping by physical reality when puberty kicks in; but it's gender, not sex, that we're dealing with when we deal with other people, and Coy's gender is now female.

Yeh, I see your point Milt, but I still kinda hope enough people around Coy keep treating him as a boy (since his parents have, as you say, made his sex globally known), in the hope that it will help him have the courage when he gets older to tell his parents to stop dressing him in .... well, dresses.

Poor kid, you're right, he is in for an utter mongrel of a time 'til he is old enough to sort things out for himself.

The thing that staggers me is that this is the type of case where liberals should be able to see that 'Coy's' actions have indirect negative consequences for his female classmates (insecurity from having a physical boy in their changing sheds, etc). So surely most liberals would be against this gender redesignation? Yet the very liberals who normally are hard out for women's rights don't seem to even see these girls anxiety... Staggering.